Tag: Cross-Stitch

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All Are Welcome

A cross-stitch montage of a wide variety of pride flags and skin tones for a brightly coloured square. Within that the words "Welcome All Races, All Religions, All Sexualities, All Genders, All Nationalities, All Disabilities, All People". A white mount surrounds the stitching with a narrow red frame. The background is a pale gold carpet.

I picked up the Safe Space cross stitch from the framers today! We go to P G Framing in Mold and Paul did a fabulous job as always. I had to request a perspex front because it’s going to be hung in a school and glass isn’t allowed. Taking pictures of things behind a shiny surface is always tricky, so you have a faint reflection of me in the pic too!

On Thursday (that’s the 19th, in two days), the new issue (185) of The Knitter comes out. If everything has gone to plan there should be a pattern in there from me and… an interview! I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m beyond excited. Do let me know if you get a copy!

Do you remember those brownies I hadn’t had time to make last week? They got made on Wednesday and lasted until yesterday! Very squidgy in the middle and particularly delicious with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice-cream. Pictured is the whole bake before cutting and a small corner cut off as soon as it was cool enough (essential for quality control).

Am Byth MKAL began on Friday and I get so excited seeing people share their progress on social media. Part One is fairly quick – I had to put anything that could tell knitters what they were making into Part Two, but it looks cool none the less! It’s also amazing when people say they’ve learnt a new cast-on, a new increase, done some cool baby cables and they’re loving it even though they have no idea what it will be! (Thanks @RobandThread!). Of course, now there’s a fairly long wait until Part Two is released – a whole extra ten days from now!

Here’s a little bit (but not all by any means) of Am Byth Part One, next to the image I designed as the pattern placeholder – can you see a connection? I’ll share my completed Part One next week.

Llandudno Promenade got blocked today. Because of the crocking (excess dye that had transferred to the cream yarn) I didn’t take my usual approach and leave it to soak for 15 minutes (or longer – I have a tendency to forget things if they’re in a different room!). Instead, I immersed it in hand warm water and gave it a good squeeze – to encourage the excess dye molecules into the water – and then repeated this twice more, the last time in colder water and holding the cream sections under the running water. It seems to have done the trick as the blocking photo looks to be less blue in the sections that shouldn’t be blue than the pre-blocking photo did!

Trying to minimise the amount of floor space taken up with blocking (this shawl wasn’t a suitable candidate to try the hap stretcher out on because of the straight edges), I ended up blocking it right side down. It’s not an aggressive block at all – just a case of getting the right angles sides straight and easing out the hypotenuse. Here are the before and after blocking pics:

A series of Knitting for Beginners classes has been booked at Caffi Isa on Monday afternoons (1-3pm), on Feb 6th, 13th and 27th. (Not the 20th as that’s half-term). I did a post about them on Instagram and Facebook on Saturday. If you know anyone who would like to learn to knit, is in Flintshire or Cheshire and is able to come to an afternoon class, please point them in my direction!

I’m also hoping to arrange a series of the same classes on an evening (in Mold) as I know afternoons don’t work for a lot of people.

That’s all from me for today. Have a good week, wrap up warm (Oh, I didn’t even mention the snow!), and do stuff that makes you happy. K x

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Slowly Does It

A flatfish sourdough loaf is held in the right hand above the bread board. It has been cut and the crumb (cut side) is held up to show the camera.

I’ve done three hours of knitting today and I can’t show it to you (it’s for the next MKAL!), but there are some other things making some (albeit slow) progress that I can share with you.

Over the past couple of days I’ve made my first sourdough loaf in quite a while. The dough was still very soft when it went into the fridge overnight and spread a lot when I tipped it out of the banneton this morning. It’s a little on the flat side, but nothing like the frisbees that I have been known to create in the past. And, regardless of how it looks, it tastes amazing.

I’m pleased with the crumb – not too many large holes. Next time I will try reducing the quantity of water as I think in the past that has helped create a dough that holds together more before baking. Lots of sourdough bakers keep a journal of all their bakes with details of temperature, timings and quantities of everything. I could do that, but I’m not sure I’d remember!

My sock is growing. If you remember I’m using RiverKnits Open Day 2022 Show yarn in 100% Cormo wool. It’s not a breed I’ve come across before, but it’s knitting up really nicely. I paused a little with this over the weekend as I wasn’t sure if I’d made the leg too long. I knew the answer was to try it on and if the top of the cuff was tight on my calf I would need to rip out the foot, gusset, heel turn and heel flap and a little of the leg. You can probably tell from that list that I was not keen on this option, but I knew that if the socks were tight at the top they would either sag down my legs or stay in the drawer unworn. So, I was putting off the moment of finding out. Eventually I plucked up the courage and tried it on – it fits! Phew!

I don’t often knit ‘regular’ socks for myself, but when I do I knit them top down with 80 stitches on 2.25mm needles. I do a slip stitch heel flap and reduce the foot down to either 72 or 68 stitches over the gusset. I’m hoping to finish the pair by the end of the month, but then I’ve also challenged myself to finish my ‘Safe Space’ embroidery this month as well, so we shall see – I may have been somewhat over optimistic when I set my monthly goals as I do actually need to do some work as well!

Speaking of which! The Safe Space embroidery is coming on – the big flag at the bottom left that I posted about yesterday is now more than half finished.

I was able to do some of it in front of the telly last night with the aid of my little Serious Readers lamp that came as a freebie (!) with my desk lamp. They are both great and the little one is charged by USB which has proved handy in power cuts (while the battery lasts!).

I’m going to set up a new page on the website of “Where I’ll be” as I’m doing more workshops and other events now. In the meantime, there is an Introduction to Two Colour Brioche Knitting workshop coming up on December 8th (Thursday) at Yarn O’clock that has a couple of spaces remaining. Contact Anne at Yarn O’clock if you would like to book a place.

I’m trying out Mastodon as a new social media platform and am gently finding my way around. If you are on there you can find me as @KathAndrews@toot.wales – it’s also encouraged me to have a go at learning Welsh and I’m on Day 3 of my adventures with Duolingo. So I now know how to say “Noswaith dda, Kath dw i. Sut dych chi? Dw i wedi blino!” That’s “Good evening, I’m Kath. How are you? I’m tired!”

So, as ‘dw i wedi blino’, I’m going to stop here, make dinner (bread plus curry made yesterday!), have a cup of tea and put my feet up for a little while before watching ‘quiz night’ on BBC2. Take care one and all. Hwyl! K x

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New Tricks

A completed crocheted granny square in self-striping yarn that changes from pink-maroon-orange. It is lying on the arm of a pale sofa.

Last night’s workshop of Beginner’s Crochet was great fun. There were a couple of people there who had done some crochet years ago and some who had never even held a hook before. By the end of our two hours they had all crocheted at least two rounds and were feeling more confident with trebles and chains. Folk even asked when the next class would be, so I must have been doing something right! Many thanks to Liz for sending me the pic of her finished granny square once she got home (that’s the main pic!).

All those attending were brilliantly positive and determined, even when finding something tricky initially. As adults we can forget what it feels like to learn a completely new skill and how frustrating it can be when it doesn’t click immediately. But the satisfaction when it does is immense. It’s only relatively recently that I taught myself to crochet right-handed, having done so left-handed for decades. It really did feel like starting from scratch – and I *knew* what I was supposed to be doing with my hands! But practice and time make it feel more natural, as with any new skill.

I’m so proud of what everyone achieved. If you are a crocheter (or are simply good at seeing patterns) you might look at some of these pieces and think you spot some ‘errors’ – and that’s completely right. As with the brioche knitting workshop a few week’s ago, unless something was going to cause a major problem later on, I encouraged people to avoid undoing their work, or to try and make it ‘perfect’. Leaving in ‘errors’ helps you see how you’ve progressed and also see what happens when you do a particular thing. For example, the centre bottom image has more trebles in the chain spaces than you would do in a granny square – but it would make a great flower!

Much thanks as always has to go to Anne from Yarn O’clock for booking and organising the evening, keeping everyone supplied with drinks and biscuits and for being generally fab!

The next workshop is on closed ring cables – there are spaces! If you are near Mold and are free on 21st June 6.30-9pm, have a look at the full details on Yarn O’clock’s website.

Next week I will be able to share something very exciting with you – a new design is being published on Wednesday 15th June. We have been asked to keep ‘sneak peeks’ to a minimum before then, so newsletter subscribers and blog readers will hear about it first in the early part of the week.

Last Wednesday we had a visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We’d not been there before and although we walked miles (literally) and saw lots and lots, it seems there is still a huge amount to explore, so we will be going back again! There was even gorgeous vegan cake in the cafe. Some of my favourite sculptures were the Barbara Hepworth ones – and Ronnie enjoyed them too!

And on Friday we had an early morning walk around part of the Great Orme to celebrate my lovely wife’s birthday. We walked about a third of the way round and then back again. I’ve been all the round the edge of the Orme in a car, been up to the top in a car, a cable car and on foot, but it was the furthest I’ve gone round the edge on foot (must remember the walking shoes next time to avoid a repeat of the big blisters).

It was quite a wind-swept experience, but lovely to sit on a bench with a flask of tea with a view of nothing but the sea in front and the Orme behind and to the sides of us. We also saw seals, cormorants and… a peregrine falcon!!! We wouldn’t have known what we were looking at if I hadn’t asked one of the two men who were sitting on folding chairs with cameras that looked like paparazzi ones with the huge lenses on the front (apart from the camouflage wrapping!) who seemed happy with the photos they had been getting.

Finally, you might be pleased to know that I did finish the embroidery by my Friday deadline! Sue is very pleased with it and it is currently drying on a towel before being pressed and stretched over mounting board prior to framing. The pattern is “Hint of Chocolate Limes” from Peppermint Purple. This was my first experience of blackwork embroidery and I loved it. I will be doing more.

I’ll be showing you LOTS of knitting next week! Take care and stay safe. Kx